Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/85

lxvii CASTILE. Ixvii eleventh century ;'^^ and, until the twelfth, the sov- section ereign held the right of jurisdiction over all eccle- ^ — siastical causes, of collating to benefices, or at least of confirming or annulling the election of the chap- ters. The code of Alfonso the Tenth, however, which borrowed its principles of jurisprudence from the civil and canon law, completed a revolution already begun, and transferred these important pre- rogatives to the pope, who now succeeded in estab- lishing a usurpation over ecclesiastical rights in Castile, similar to that which had been before ef- fected in other parts of Christendom. Some of these abuses, as that of the nomination of foreign- ers to benefices, were carried to such an impudent height, as repeatedly provoked the indignant re- monstrances of the cortes. The ecclesiastics, eager to indemnify themselves for what they had sacri- ficed to Rome, were more than ever solicitous to assert their independence of the royal jurisdiction. They particularly insisted on their immunity from taxation, and were even reluctant to divide with the laity the necessary burdens of a war, which, from its sacred character, would seem to have im- perative claims on them.'^^ Notwithstanding the immediate dependence thus comiini.,n of the clergy. established on the head of the church by the legis- ts The contest for supremacy, appears to grudge this appropria- between the Mozarabic ritual and tion of the " sacred revenues of the the Roman, is familiar to the read- Church " to defray the expenses er, in the curious narrative extract- of the holy war against the Sara- ed by Robertson from Mariana, can. (Hist, de Espafia, torn. i. p. Hist, de Espaiia, lib. 9, cap. 18. 177.) See also the Ensayo, (nos. 76 Siete Partidas, part. 1, tit. 6. 32-2-364,) where Marina has an- — riorez, Espaiia Sagrada, tom. alyzed, and discussed the general XX. p. 16. — The Jesuit Mariana import of the first of the Partidas.